Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillary Rodham senior thesis (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Clear consensus not to delete. Whether or not to merge can be discussed outside of AfD. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 10:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham senior thesis
AfDs for this article:


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Fails WP:NOTNEWS and WP:SUSTAINED - briefly in the news cycle, no new coverage since 2016. Thesis itself not inherently notable. The claim to notability came from the limiting of access and subsequent release of the thesis, so falls under the events notability guideline, which it fails per WP:PERSISTENCE. A re-nom was suggested by the closer of the previous AfD on the basis that its notability might change if Hillary was not elected; the paucity of WP:INDEPTH and lack of WP:SIGCOV is perhaps clearer now than it was at the time. Jr8825  o   Talk  03:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  Jr8825   o   Talk  03:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  Jr8825   o   Talk  03:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions.  Jr8825   o   Talk  03:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Alternative proposal. We have around fifty articles on the "Early life of" (or "Early life and career of") particularly notable figures - Sinatra, Stalin, Clint Eastwood, Jan Smuts, Biden, Obama, and so on. Break out the "early life" content from Hillary Clinton into an Early life and career of Hillary Clinton, and merge this into it. BD2412  T 03:59, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think this is a good suggestion. I agree much of the content is sourced and well written, my concern is that the topic fails the notability threshold for a stand-alone article. Placing it in the context of Hillary's early life is a good idea - I suppose the question is, is someone willing to do that? Jr8825   o   Talk  15:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd be glad to. BD2412  T 16:36, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per BD2412. The thesis itself is worthy of an article; it was covered for 23 years, between 1993 and 2016, and I believe that is long enough to qualify as sustained coverage, and in the absence of an alternative proposal I would !vote Keep, but I find the argument for the merge compelling, and believe it would improve coverage of Clinton. BilledMammal (talk) 04:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Changed from merge to keep, per SecretName's argument against merge. BilledMammal (talk) 12:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. The nominator makes a cogent argument for reassessing the notability of this topic. BD2412 makes a good proposal about what to do with this. I will have to ruminate and come back. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:27, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge per BD2412. To claim that it doesn't have sustained coverage is absolutely absurd: it had multiple decades of sustained coverage. The nom's citation to NOTNEWS is even more absurd; in what way could a First Lady's college thesis possibly be considered routine or mundane? I don't see any good reason to delete. Mlb96 (talk) 06:34, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If you look at substantial coverage in RS, of which there's extremely little, it's small clusters of news pieces mostly from 2007, when a reporter went and read it and other outlets picked it up, and 2016 (when she ran for election). The vast majority of RS coverage is trivial/non-significant, particularly the 2016 coverage (which mostly focussed on her political views) and mentions outside the cluster time frames. I'd argue it is mundane - it's a minor scandal related to a public figure, of which there are countless other non-notable examples. Aside from the fact the limited coverage suggests it fails the events notability guideline by itself, I think it's a case of US-centric newspaper recentism, which makes it unsuitable for an encyclopedic article. Jr8825   o   Talk  15:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you are not factoring in that in the 1990s and very early 2000s, when it appears this was the most controversial and discussed, the internet was in its infancy. Few news sources readily have the bulk of their articles and broadcasts from the 1990s and very early 2000s online, so that era of coverage would fail to sufficiently register with an online search. SecretName101 (talk) 12:45, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I dug through the newspaper archival services I have access to via my uni library (Factiva, ProQuest Historical Newspapers and British Library Newspapers), which together cover most major US news media throughout the period 1990–2010. There's next to nothing. The only significant coverage of the thesis is from March 2007: the two simultaneous 2 March NBC articles by Bill Dedman, the journalist who dug it up by instructing his students to blog about it, the Boston Globe article picking the story up 2 days later and the WaPo write-up at the end of the month. Our article is almost entirely reliant on the NBC/Globe pieces. It doesn't seem to have gained much traction in RS – there are no other articles about the thesis in the archives (obviously they exclude less established media sources). There are a fistful of passing mentions which clearly fail SIGCOV: 3 first lady profiles from 1992, 1993 and 1998 name-drop Alan Schechter as her thesis advisor at Wellesley College within detailed profiles of Hillary's life and education, but don't go into much detail about it. A deeply unflattering 1999 "Special Report" called "Will Hillary Be Pilloried?" in the conservative magazine Insight includes the following passing mention "How radical was she? ...shortly after graduation, Hillary requested that her senior thesis, examining the social programs of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, be sealed from the public. While it is not likely she will be grilled on the details of a paper written 30 years ago, the public life and policy initiatives of Rodham Clinton now will be closely examined". Following Dedman's 2007 "scoop" he was interviewed in the last couple of minutes of a 29 May 2007 NPR broadcast themed around theses ("Tales From the Thesis Trenches") for the end of the academic year (the interviewer is jokingly dismissive, saying "Hillary Clinton’s thesis has become sort of a holy grail for a lot of conservative bloggers and talk show hosts"; the other 9/10ths of the transcript are interviews with recent graduates). The Sept 2007 NYT article we cite for a summary of the dissertation isn't about the thesis itself, it's an overview of her early life and education which provides a brief overview of the thesis in the final paragraph – again, not SIGCOV, the subject is Hillary. It next resurfaces in 2016 with a spate of election coverage: it gets brief one-sentence mentions on TV transcripts for a PBS NewsHour Election Special and a "Who is Hillary Clinton?" CNN special, and an article in the Vancouver Sun on "young Hillary Clinton" mentions it briefly in the broader context of her education, noting that "the thesis has been cast by Clinton's critics as evidence of Clinton's early association with radicals". You might be able to find a few more sources if you scour through Google since the archives don't cover a lot of web content, but you'll have to wade through a bunch of non-RS. Editors are insisting this had had lots of coverage, but I simply can't see it. Another thing that did come up, amusingly, was a 2008 Fox News: Hannity’s America transcript called "Putting Michelle Obama's Thesis Under the Microscope"... Jr8825  •  Talk  14:28, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Notability does not require that topics remain in the news, just that there are sufficient reliable sources to write a neutral and information article. It is linked to in other articles and has had over 10,000 views this year. Clinton is an important political figure and her intellectual development remains of great interest. TFD (talk) 15:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Gives off strong WP:TRUMPNOT vibes. What about Hillary Rodham credit card statement, Hillary Rodham Zillow listing, Hillary Rodham diary entry, and Hillary Rodham dream journal? KidAd   o   SPEAK  17:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If there were notable, significant, and sustained controversies regarding any of the slippery slope examples you gave, then, sure, there'd be an argument for notability. SecretName101 (talk) 11:22, 25 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep -- It would not have notability as her thesis in itself, but it does have notability as a right-wing talking point. This is much the same as The Pet Goat... AnonMoos (talk) 03:30, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep It is clear that it has notability due to the speculation, analysis, and controversy that it has generated over the years. Additionally, I believe that any merge would lose significant information about the notable controversy that it generated. Also, side note: the commenter in the last afd that said its notability could change was exhibiting bad practice. If articles are going to vary in notability based on the outcome of a pending election, then they do not pass notability prior to the election. SecretName101 (talk) 11:19, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That is indeed my view. I disagreed with other editors at the time that the topic passed the notability threshold for a stand-alone article. I thought then (and still think now) that coverage was standard scrutiny of a high-profile politician and there was never a large or consistent enough volume of RS coverage to indicate that the thesis and events surrounding it pass N(E)/NOTNEWS. To take a non-US example, I'm confident you could find a greater number of British RS news media discussing the number of children Boris Johnson may or may not have (and just like this article, you could probably cite bits of biographies) but it's pretty obviously unsuitable for a stand-alone article despite the coverage of the years. What's the significance of Johnson's children, causing that coverage? What it supposedly shows about Johnson's morals. What's the significance of Hillary's college thesis? What it supposedly shows about Hillary's politics. The notability stems from the politicians, not the events themselves, which is also why coverage is likely to spike at election time. Although not strictly policy, I'd also point to the recentism WP:10YEARTEST: I don't believe it's even been likely that the thesis will having lasting historical significance, which, in fairness to the commentors at the AfD, might have been different if she'd happened to become a US president of Lincoln-level fame. I think the near-complete absence of coverage now Hillary is no longer in political office/running for high office evidences this view. Jr8825  •  Talk  11:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Even if right-wing writers, such as Barbara Olsen and David Brock had not written extensively on how they believed Alinsky influenced Clinton, the thesis itself gives an interesting insight into Clinton's intellectual development. Alinksy confirmed her opposition to "big government" and the Great Society. OTOH, she broke with Alinsky over whether change could come from inside. (See "Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis," Bill Dedman, NBC News, March 2, 2007.) Alan Schechter, who was Clinton's thesis adviser, says, "My conclusion, she was already thinking in terms of practical politics, what works, what doesn't, more than on ideology." Also, Clinton's relationship with Alinsky (she spent time with him and was offered a job) is also a significant part of her life story. If early writings of other politicians are not notable, it's because first few of them wrote theses about politics and second their intellectual development isn't as important. We do however have articles about early books written by major political figures, such as Obama's Dreams from My Father and even Trump's The America We Deserve. TFD (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Those books obtained notability through notable-enough sales performances in publication. So not a great comparison on that last point. SecretName101 (talk) 20:24, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Keep, the subject has received significant coverage and I think it deserves its own article, per SecretName101's argument. Sahaib (talk) 15:20, 25 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.